Establishing a Baseline for Organizations’ Enterprise Architecture, Portfolio Management, and Enterprise Governance
by Myles Bogner on September 28th, 2011 at 10:24 am
Myles Bogner, Ph.D, VP Research and Development
with Special Asynchrony Guest Jason Carter, President of Aegis Strategies
As organizations embark on improving their Enterprise Architecture, Portfolio Management, and Enterprise Governance efforts, a frequent question tends to be, where are we now? Below we offer a set of questions to guide the creation of an “as-is” assessment around these three areas. We’ve categorized these questions into seven broad categories.
Governance
- What are your governance bodies, documents, and processes?
- How are IT investments prioritized and funded across your enterprise?
- What are the guiding principles that you would like to achieve through enterprise governance?
- Are your governance organizations formally chartered; where are they?
- Is there an IT governance process for routine requirements different from a strategic IT governance process?
- Does your community of lead architects come together regularly in a forum; is this forum chartered?
- Is there a formal tie between the enterprise architecture and engineering communities; if so, what is the concept of operations?
- Is there a formal tie between your organization and any external communities of interest; if so, what are the governance charters?
- Is there a formal enterprise architecture configuration and control board; if so, is it chartered and executing?
- Is there a prescribed methodology for software development across the organization to ensure secure, timely delivery?
- Are the organization’s architectural rules succinctly captured?
- Is there a configuration control board around a common computing environment; is this chartered?
- Specifically for government organizations, what are the governance procedures for ensuring Clinger-Cohen Act compliance?
Information
- Is there an enterprise data group established; if so, is there a common vocabulary and a prescribed way for sharing information?
- How is data quality being addressed as an enterprise-wide focus?
- How are system information needs and data flows categorized?
- Are there any standard message templates in use; how are these governed?
- Is there common reference data; if so, which system(s) provide it and how is it governed?
Business
- Does the enterprise share the same vision; is this captured in an easy to understand graphic?
- What are enterprise’s defined capabilities, and have they been decomposed into tasks, conditions, and standards that have broad organizational agreement?
- Are the lines of business defined; is there enterprise consensus on this?
- What are the activities performed that support the enterprise capabilities and lines of business?
- Are there clearly identified enterprise functions that cross lines of business?
- What are the enterprise architecture touch-points to external architectures?
- Is there a formal way to capture business processes in a consistent, industry standard manner; are any captured? How are these business processes linked to information flows, performance metrics, and governance bodies?
Performance
- What are the enterprise performance categories and metrics from both operational and technical aspects; which organizations have authority for these metrics?
- Is performance actually measured and used to drive improvements?
Enterprise Initiatives and Enabling IT Systems
- How does the CIO office convey user and architectural needs to project managers and how are these managers held accountable for delivery?
- How do project managers know that they are in alignment with the enterprise architecture?
- What redundancies exist across systems from functional and technical perspectives in the enterprise; how are these being addressed?
- How are projects assessed from an operational, technical, and financial perspective; what are the results?
Service
- How are enterprise web services implemented and governed; is there a roadmap for the upcoming enterprise services?
- What are the enterprise web service management tools and processes; how many systems are utilizing these today?
- What standards guide web service development?
- Is there an enterprise service-oriented architecture infrastructure established; what are the tools and selection criteria utilized for these tools
- What are the enterprise standards for technical refresh and software selection; are these governed enterprise-wide?
- Is there a plan to move each of the systems to a shared platform such as a common user interface; what platform has been selected and what is the transition schedule?
- What is the vision for the enterprise to move toward cloud computing; how is this vision conveyed to others?
- How are enterprise user authentication and account management solution(s) implemented and governed in the portfolio?
Once an enterprise establishes its baseline, these same set of questions can be prioritized and utilized by the organization as a spring-board to implementing a robust enterprise architecture and portfolio management practice.
Automated Test-Driven Enterprise Architecture
by Myles Bogner on March 21st, 2011 at 11:40 am
I always enjoy working with organizations’ Enterprise Architects. When they execute correctly, enterprise architects truly shape the direction of the organization. They touch everything, including how corporate governance should function, where the business needs to move in terms of process and performance, how information management should be improved, what the key information technology initiatives should be, and how the portfolio should be shaped to support this to-be vision. Enterprise architects are usually passionate individuals, truly devoted to their chosen Enterprise Architecture framework, tool, and population methodology. They should have this zeal; they weave together the entire disparate threads of the organization. The best organizations leverage their enterprise architecture to foster making and executing on key business decisions.
When I sit with enterprise architects for the first time, I’m usually given a slide show overview of what the architecture is all about. Sometimes, I’m shown actual artifacts, and rarely, they’re pulled up directly in the architecture tool. When it’s time for questions, I intentionally lead with one that always returns blank stares: “Do you have any automated tests?” I don’t expect a response, and usually I’m looked at strangely. I do believe strongly in the question though, because it makes them realize that there’s a potential deficiency in their architectural approach. If I thought they had considered that question already, I’d ask, “How do you approach creating your automated test-driven enterprise architecture to ensure it’s executable?”
Automated test-first development is found throughout the Agile software development practice; it can also be found to some extent by Business Process Management (BPM) practitioners when creating simulations in a BPM tool. It’s the process of creating a small, discrete automated test in advance of the solution (such as source code) being present. When executing the test initially, therefore, it will fail as there is not yet anything to execute. Over time, as the solution is created, the test passes. The tests are then packaged to continuously run in an integration build. If a test begins to fail, it’s either that the implementer made an error, or the underlying intent has changed and the test needs to be updated. In either case, the implementer is forced to think about the reason for the test’s status change.
Automated tests can be created for an enterprise architecture throughout its development process in many areas. A basic one is the population of an artifact. For example, let’s say the architecture contains a taxonomy of governance bodies, each which is tied to one or more business processes which, in turn, are tied to one or more web services. The automated tests, possibly leveraged as macros in an enterprise architecture tool, are very straight forward:
- Is the desired core information present for the entered governance body such as its name?
- Is the governance body linked to at least one corresponding valid business process?
- Are each of the web services linked to one or more business processes?
It’s quite straightforward to begin building up tests in this fashion in areas such as:
1. Population of artifacts and linkages between them
2. Population and consistency of an underlying meta-model and generated reports
3. Ensuring the architecture is tied to the strategic business objectives
Creating and continually executing automated tests against an enterprise architecture can hone the organization. At the surface, it highlights areas where enterprise architects need to focus. More deeply, it alerts organizations to potential information gaps for critical decision-making. A test-driven approach fosters the architecture becoming a reliable executable entity.
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